I've been working hard to lower our shared-spending deficit, but like magic, something comes up every time I manage to reduce the balance a little bit, so we're still at about $4K despite finding hundreds of dollars in the budget to put toward it.

However, I'm feeling more optimistic after this week. AS has booked a bunch more work. Some of it is up in the air as to the exact amount, but I do feel like at some point, the money will start rolling in and our deficit should go down pretty quickly. Fingers crossed some of that happens in the next couple weeks, so I can feel confident enough booking our 2-night trip to Wisconsin. We'll see! We have a friend possibly interested in coming with us, which would help diffuse transportation and lodging costs because she has a car.

We went to the State Fair 2 days in a row and spent nearly $500 total! Luckily I'd set that aside in our annual budget so the only thing that added to our deficit was ordering food delivery when we got home on the second day.

I spent some time today turning over the kids' wardrobes from summer to fall/winter. In the process I always transfer AA's outgrown/unwanted clothes to storage for when SL grows into them, and we ended up with about 75 articles of clothing that SL had outgrown or wouldn't need. I took the advice that a few of you posted on MyEnglishCastle's blog and listed some lots of kids clothes on FB garage sale. $15 for a batch of size 4 clothes and $20 for a batch of 5/6 clothes. I have no idea if they'll sell but I figure it doesn't hurt to hold onto them for a couple days and then donate them if no one is interested. We got most of the clothes for free in the first place, via hand-me-downs and grandparent gifts, so it's no loss if they don't sell.

Raise/promotion talks have gone nowhere at work since they switched my reporting structure around and my direct supervisor has been insanely swamped. But we have a check-in this coming week, and I've been getting rave reviews from important people over the past month, so hopefully she has time for our touch-base and I can ask her where we should go from here now that the guy we were going to talk to isn't in charge of us anymore.

AS recently got an offer of a LOT of work from a guy I used to work with who now works elsewhere; I put AS in touch with him when she went freelance and she's done several projects for him. She suggested maybe there was so much work that he'd need even more freelance help, so I asked her to mention me to him. If I could squeeze in some freelance work while I'm slowly trying to nudge my work into giving me more money, that would be a great boost in the meantime. I know he pays really well!

I transferred 1,000 pounds from UK savings to UK checking in preparation for NT's trip. He's hoping that will suffice for his remaining trip expenses. He leaves Friday for 10 days. He's staying with family and friends and taking public transport when not being driven around. So other than a few bus/train tickets and food and drink (and stuff he wants to bring back like HP sauce and PG Tips teabags), it shouldn't be an over-the-top vacation in terms of spending. I'm hoping people cook for him and/or buy him meals once in a while!

Anyway, that brings our EF down to $6,000. But if he can manage not to take any more out, and the flat doesn't require any repairs in the next few months, we should be at our $10K goal by about May 2018.

But, I'm braced for curveballs that throw us off course, because it's been that kind of year! I'm hopeful but realize things may not go the way I want.